Certainly, there are many temp agencies up here, but as was said above, they won't be filling UAW jobs. Things called "work rules" where each job is specialized and only certain people can fill it, are becoming much more relaxed however. Just a couple of years ago it was a huge deal when Chrysler won concessions from the UAW for a new plant in Michigan and were thus able to move workers around from job to job as needed much more efficiently. In the past, if a worker was supposed to put a door on a vehicle, and you shut down that part of the line for some reason, you couldn't just move them to another component without jumping through a lot of union hoops. Some of that is still there, but at least it's getting better for what I hear.

Still, in a dyno facility I frequent, we had an issue with a fuel injector on the engine and as soon as I determined it was likely in the harness, the technician said he had to call an electrician. I found a voltmeter and some leads and started working on it myself with his permission. He just didn't feel qualified so he used the excuse that electrical work wasn't his job. We're talking just checking for short and open circuits here. It was depressing. He didn't even come in the cell and try to learn the basics of electrical fault finding. Of course, if I hadn't been able to work on it, it would have waited until morning since the electrician leaves at 3:30 in the afternoon. If we had an antagonistic relationship he would have been within his union rights to refuse me to work on the engine and we would have missed our 2nd shift of work.

I'm curious. Have any of you started seeing some GM ads on the TV that are at least a start at doing some positive PR for GM? They usually end with something like, "And they're built by GM, surprised?" Ads that talk about CTS quality awards and the like, . . .

What surprises me is I haven't seen any such ads by Ford or Chrysler in the past 2 months. From the boards I've been reading during my vacation, and shows like Garage419 podcasts, etc. the misconceptions about the Detroit 3 show that many of the people just haven't bought or even driven a Detroit 3 product in years, and have also heard nothing good about them from friends.

Heck, the Ford Fusion hybrid is coming out this spring or so, and the official mileage ratings are 41/36 City/Hwy. That's 8 MPG better in the city than the Camry hybrid. I've seen no mention of this in any ads other than on sites where automotive devoted people hang out. Concerning Ford quality, even Consumer Reports has said Ford has pulled even with the Japanese carmakers. The message just isn't sinking in.

I was watching a computer podcast video last week and they were reviewing the LA Auto Show. The guy showed some concepts Toyota and Mitsubishi had for fuel cell vehicles and touted how the Detroit 3 had nothing to show in this area at the show. That may have been correct, but what he didn't say is GM has had test fleets of fuel cell powered Chevy Equinoxes in Chicago, NY and DC for about 2 years now IIRC. That's more advanced than any of the competition in the US that I've seen. I think they didn't have it at the LA Auto Show because it's old news to GM. Perhaps it's another PR mistake, since it appears much of the public just doesn't know these things.

There's a long road ahead I think.

The latest version of Car and Driver has a comparison of the Ford Fusion Hybrid with the Malibu, Camry and one other that I can't remember (Nissan I think). The Ford won the comparison by a pretty healthy margin. The Malibu was the only car in the test that was a "mild hybrid" meaning it can not move on electric power only. It came in last and they made it look like old tech compared to the other three cars. Plus they said it had cheap plastic interior. This is odd because the previous reviews of the non-hybrid Malibu models were glowing. Does the hybrid Malibu have a different level of interior than the other versions?

My brother-in-law from New York was in town for Christmas. We were discussing cars in general and American vs foreign cars. He is dead set against American cars. The only American car he likes is the Corvette. Even though he likes the 'vette, he is willing to spend several times the price for a Porche turbo 911 rather than get the 'vette. I told him a few things about the 'vettes and I think I may have at least made him think a bit. I suggested that he at least go drive a 'vette before dropping the cash on the 911. As for more basic cars, his opinion is that all American cars are inferior to Japanese and German cars. I tried to explain that, in my opinion, over the last 10-15 years that gap has been closing and that today, the American are just as good. But for him to start thinking about buying American, the American cars will have to become significantly better than the foreign competition. Unfortunately, I think there are too many people that think similarly.

The trade rags are as corrupt, if not more so, than the news media.

Did Ford have more advertisements in that issue, if not exclusive, than the other auto makers? My guess is yes ...

FWIW, my wife's cousin is married to a UAW worker at local Ford truck plant. He's been sitting at home for 2 months or so and all we heard on Christmas was how much it sucked sitting at home for weeks at a time making 95%. Some people just don't get it. They were actually upset that he couldn't go get another job during the downtime since he didn't know when he'd return.

I don't think the interior is different between models, but level of trim, for instance going with leather interior and a more upscaled V6 engine, may change some of the trim.

Yes, a stop-start hybrid is a very cheap way to go. It won't get as good of fuel mileage as a full hybrid, but it's a lot cheaper. You get what you pay for. The nice thing is last I heard the Camry hybrid doesn't get the government rebate anymore, since Toyota has sold it's limit. Thus, the Malibu gets the full credit. Put this credit, and a lower purchase price for the Malibu up against the Camry hybrid, and I don't think you ever make your money back on the Camry. Of course, financial sensibility isn't on the table anymore. It's all about the image a car company gets from having the best fuel economy. In that respect, GM is losing.

Since the new Malibu hasn't been out for very long, this survey is the only one I can find on it by what should be a nonbiased source:

JD Power Malibu Review

At least with JD Power, it came in first place overall for midsize sedans. I also saw that Car and Driver had it in 3rd place, even with it's 4 cylinder version in a recent shootout. The Honda Accord and Nissan Altima beat it, but the Toyota Camry was behind it.

This post has been edited by 94bird: Dec 30 2008, 06:59 AM

No ruffeling here Stan. You verbalized better than what I was trying to point out. It is both colored "collars".
Not all "salaried" are arrogant, and not all Union workers are the duragatory donkey.
I will agree with you about the Union protecting the Bad Apples.
I use to be a Union Steward at Alcoa for the UAW. I hated it. The complaints for the good honest workers usually did not get passed the Committee level. And it was just not in my department, it was that way in every department.
But somebody that kept screwing up time and time again, the Committee would be all over it saving that person's backside.
I do apologize if I did piss someone off. I think it is unfair to blame one group when in this case the problems are everywhere. Especially the Banks and the credit freeze they have.

Overtime pay is not a reward. Overtime pay is a compensation your employer has to pay for keeping you at work longer then the standard 40 hour work week.

I don't know about you, but the last thing I want a part-time employee working on is my body, let alone anything else. Besides, if they want me to be on-call, there better be some better compensation then part-time for less money. How do they become more experienced if you only work them part-time?

You may call it smart business, I call it shitting on your employees. It's all about conditions. Ever since the 40-hour work week became common, people have been trading it back and if people don't put their foot down, we'll be back to the days of robber barons before we know it. Some people don't give away everything that was negotiated and you call them assholes. There are lazy, stupid, and unreasonable people in every job and they either get weeded out or become management.

People can keep their salary, paid time off, and bending to the whim. I'll take my hourly rate, unpaid time off, and ability to stick to my contract. Unpaid time off makes it real expensive to race, but at least I don't have to blow someone to take a day off or schedule it 6 months in advance.

LOL ... I had to quote that. That is classic!

howdy,



Some of us have never had a (real) job eligible for overtime. Excuse me if my heart doesn't bleed if someone shorts an hourly guy five minutes on a break, particularly when that hourly guy is protected by his union, makes twice what I do, and I'm the one designing / installing the equipment his entire job is maintaining. Not that I'm bitter.

:-)



Most hourly folks I know still need to schedule their time off like anyone else.

Here's what I'd like to see with the UAW _and_ Wagoner and his cronies. Tie 25% of the UAW worker pay and 75% of senior management pay to company performance (a mixture of JD Power reviews, CR reviews, and profits). And yes, UAW management folks count as "and his cronies".

Mark

Perhaps instead of hiring them "part-time" some of the employees could be re-hired as contractors. That way you retain the experience without the overhead, and they can work as many or as little hours are required/desired.

As for the rest of that post, well, IMHO...that's the reason unions exist, and that's the reason they are despised. Nothing like having an argumentative union employee telling you "it's not in my contract" when you're trying to get product out the door to beat the competition. It really shows where the true loyalty lies.

Nape, please don't take any of this personally. As other's have said, no one group is to blame, especially the factory workers who are actually "turning wrenches". That said, I do want to tackle a few of your points (again, not trying to attack you, just some things that you brought up, which I have heard elsewhere, also).

You say you don't want a PT person working on your car. Are you more comfortable with them administering your medications in a hospital? What about preparing your food? PT workers are all over the place. I went and looked at a Dodge Challenger the other day (those things are TALL!). It said that the engine is from Mexico. Are you happier with a FT Mexican building your car or a PT American? My point is that PT workers can be just as competent as FT ones. If you have proper quality control measures in place, then it should not matter.

The incentive to work PT is because that's where people start out. When you start working, there are no FT positions available. You gain experience working PT, while learning many different jobs. Then, once a FT position becomes available, you already have experience. I realize that you may not want to do this, but think back to when you were 18 and looking for a job. If you were offered $25 per hour, but only 20 hours of work, would you take that over a 40-hour job making $11 at some shade-tree mechanic place?

The last thing is "contract". I feel that there should not be contracts for workers. I live in an "at will" state. This means that I may be let go for any reason whatsoever. In fact, my employer does not need to even give a reason - they just tell me not to come in tomorrow. This sounds horrible for me, until you figure that I can do the same thing. At any point, if I find a better job, I can walk out.

This is actually a very fascinating system. The reason it works so well is because of what it requires me to do to ensure that I keep my job. It's not good enough for me to show up, turn out average work, and go home. I have to be better than the next guy. If layoffs come, I have to make sure that I am the last person on the list. Because everyone in the company is doing (or should be doing) the same thing, it means that my company is in a better competitive position than other companies. This, in turn, means that my company is less likely to need to lay anyone off.

To contrast, let's look at what happens when you bring contracts into the workplace. People are guaranteed a job, unless they sexually assault the bosses wife (hahaha - just joking). This means that only their personal pride is driving them to do their best work (Nape, you strike me as this type of guy). However, you get the other guys on the line who are just going to go through the motions to collect a paycheck. While they may be protected by their contract from layoffs, it is bad for the company. Then, in bad economic times, the company is unable to cope and has to make some hard decisions.

Then, you get what we have now with companies having to either take handouts or go bankrupt becasue they cannot compete with those other "at will" comapnies.

Oh, and I'm not taking this personally, but I'm also not going to apologize to anyone for wanting to get ahead in life. If I have a chance to move up in my company and become a member of upper management, and I can do it legally and ethically, then I'm going to take it. In fact, I did just that not 3 weeks ago. Yeah, I hurt some feelings, but I did what is best for myself, my family and my company.

Who do you work for Mark? Just curious.

Matt, just to eliminate confusion, "contract" in most instances refers to a worker that does not work directly for GM. I don't know if that's what TJ means. For instance, most of our technicians at our proving grounds are contract. GM goes to an outside agency that hires and sometimes trains mechanics and tells the agency they need a certain number of mechanics that are proficient in a certain discipline or with certain certifications. The agency then provides those employees. There is no certain length of time for which the employee is needed and the contract employees can be let go with no real notice. GM will pay the contract agency a certain hourly rate, and the contract agency is responsible for the benefits, etc. of the employees. BTW, many of the designers who work with CAD are also contract. This eliminates the benefits and cost of training from GM. Some of you may know how much training classes cost for newer CAD software, like CATIA, Unigraphics or ProE. It's not cheap. Sometimes, a contract employee may be hired by GM to be a "direct" employee after a certain period of time if the employee's performance is very good. It can therefore become a kind of "try it before you buy it" program.

Also, in regards to paying for performance, I think that's already done at most companies. Raises and bonuses are given based off of performance. Granted, it's not 25% or anything, but the principle is there. To dock a UAW employee 25% of his salary based on his or her company not performing well would be very unfair I think. I think a fair way is to give a 5% bonus or so each year, on top of a potential raise, if the employee goes above and beyond his or her job requirements and a promotion opportunity is not available. If the employee does not perform, you don't give a bonus and at best only give a cost of living raise, and then you go through the warning and documentation process, and fire the employee if the behavior continues. An additional carrot would be to give overtime preference to the employees that demonstrate the best performance. Put all of those things together and that's big financial leverage on the employee to perform. Of course with unions, most of this leverage can not be used.

This post has been edited by 94bird: Dec 31 2008, 07:36 PM

Ahhhh - gotcha. I thought we were talking about an employee who has signed a document to work for x-many years, at x-hourly rate, and in exchange can only be fired for cause.

Howdy,



Me? I work for an insurance company these days as a programmer.

Back when I dealt with unions, I worked for a furnace controls company that supplied controls for annealing furnaces that US Steel used.

Mark

Howdy,



As one of the people now footing part of the bill for workers (including management) not to perform, I'm about done with the carrot approach.

Mark

Mark, you pay your taxes and provide a salary to the congress members, and they aren't performing. Is there any difference?

Howdy,



Theoretically, yes. I can vote them out of office.

Also... In this particular case, congress did indeed perform. Its my buddy GW that screwed the pooch.

Again.

Even if you ignore all that, two wrongs (or 900 wrongs) still don't make a right.

Mark

This post has been edited by marka: Dec 31 2008, 09:20 PM

Unfortunately, congressmen still get a pretty fat pension deal after they are "fired" by the voters (though they can lose it if they are formally "fired" for certain types of misconduct).